Downtown Montreal borough unveils plan to reduce traffic on residential streets following death of schoolgirl

Months after the hit-and-run death of a seven-year-old in a school zone in Ville-Marie, the downtown Montreal borough has announced new measures to make its residential streets safer for pedestrians and reduce the number of cars travelling through the area.

"Unfortunately, we've seen in the past months a big increase in collisions in our streets," said Sophie Mauzerolle, city councillor for the Sainte-Marie district and the person responsible for transportation and mobility on the city's executive committee.

"We all remember the tragic incident that occurred in December when little Mariia [Lehenkovska] died a few blocks from here."

Mauzerolle said the goal is to reduce the level of transit in the area to protect the elderly, children and other vulnerable populations.

The measures include the closing of streets and the redirection of traffic.

According to the plan, announced on Thursday, one block of Larivière Street (between De Lorimier Avenue and Parthenais Street) will be completely closed to cars, and sections of Ottawa, Sainte-Rose and Clark streets will also be closed.

Fullum, Parthenais, de Rouen, Peel, Hope and Sussex streets will change direction or be converted into one-way streets, while Saint-Christophe, Berthier, Sainte-Rose, du Square-Amherst streets and Clark Street near the intersection of Maisonneuve Boulevard will be redeveloped. 

The borough also announced it would install over 100 speed bumps throughout the area to reduce speeding, especially in the Centre-Sud neighbourhood.

As for school zones, the borough said it may add road markings and signs or close off more streets.

In January, the borough announced the reconfiguration of four streets into one-ways to increase pedestrian safety in school zones and near daycares.

Advocates for safer Ville-Marie weigh in

Mathieu Murphy-Perron, a member of Vélorution Montréal, a cycling advocacy group, said the plan is "exciting in many ways," and welcomed the news of Larivière Street closing.   

Murphy-Perron said drivers use the street as a quick shortcut to get around the city, putting pedestrians at risk.

"If people think that they can save two minutes by cutting through the neighbourhood, they're going to do it because everybody's pressed for time … and every time that they do they are putting people in harm's way because those streets are not meant to be driven down in that way."

Chris McCray, co-founder of the Collectif apaisement pour Sainte-Marie, a group that advocates for reducing traffic in the borough's Sainte-Marie neighborhood, also approves. 

"It seems like it might seem like a small change, but it's actually a pretty big source of traffic in the neighbourhood around our residential streets and in front of schools," said McCray. 

"We're also happy to see the 110 new speed bumps that are going to be added."

Overall, McCray said the group is satisfied with the measures, but he said Ville-Marie has a lot more to do when it comes to pedestrian safety to catch up to other parts of the city like the Plateau. 

"We need these measures to be kind of accelerated and we need them to be put into place not just in this specific area," he said, adding that the current proposals are focused on the area where the seven-year-old was killed in the hit-and-run in December. 

"Mariia's death, I think, was kind of a wake up call for a lot of people, not just in not just in Montreal, but in the entire province, that a lot needed to be done to secure, especially for kids and elderly people."